A user can subscribe to a centralized monitoring service, such as a home security service, to assist with the monitoring and/or operation of the user's property. These services typically install and program security devices and have a centralized office, staffed around the clock, to monitor system operation. When a critical situation occurs, such as a burglary, the office staff can detect it and take action to contact the home owner.
However, monitoring services are expensive and can't provide all the flexibility and responsiveness users are looking for. For example, if the homeowner knows of a temporary condition that may provide false information to the service, such as a broken window, it can be difficult to update centralized services with this information. This situation could lead to false alarms because basic operating information is incorrect or there exists some confusion among the security staff. Additionally, it may be inconvenient or difficult for homeowners to update the service with frequently changing contact information. As a result, even if proper detection of an alarm condition occurs, the homeowner cannot be located.
Another problem with centralized monitoring services is that the employees of the service sometimes make mistakes. False alarms can occur when an employee misinterprets information provided by the system. Missed alarm conditions can occur if employees fail to properly monitor the system. Even when alarm conditions are properly detected, an employee may be slow to respond or may otherwise fail to take appropriate action. Thus, existing monitoring services can be unreliable, miss alarm conditions, detect false alarms, fail to notify users and can be difficult to update with the most recent operating information. As a result, people would greatly benefit from improvements in notification systems which can overcome the above problems and provide additional user controllable functionality.
One area where it would be desirable to have improved user notification and control is in vehicle monitoring systems. Motor vehicles are attractive targets for theft and vandalism due to their high value and inherent mobility. The development of motor vehicles has been paralleled by the development of alarm systems to protect them. These alarm systems range from simple steering wheel locks to more sophisticated electronic alarm systems. Typically, vehicle alarms try to prevent unauthorized access to the vehicle or removal of the vehicle without the owner's permission.
A major drawback of many vehicle alarm systems is that the owner may not be alerted to a possible theft until the vehicle has already been taken. Some audible alarm systems provide intrusion alerts to the area immediately surrounding the vehicle, but the vehicle owner may not be near enough to hear such alerts. In addition, the general public has become so accustomed to hearing these warning sounds that the warnings have lost their effectiveness to deter theft.
Just as in home security systems, expensive centralized services to provide vehicle security are available. In one such service, the owner may report that a vehicle was stolen, at which point the service activates a location device in an attempt to locate the stolen vehicle. However, the service activation doesn't occur until the owner reports the vehicle as stolen, thereby failing to provide real-time monitoring and control capability.
Although notification services for monitoring user items such as homes and cars provide improvements over simple audible alarms, they are subject to significant limitations. For example, all the problems discussed above (such as information updating, operator errors and user interface problems) exist with current notification services. The most significant drawback is that notification services have human operators who may be slow and prone to make errors. For example, a monitoring staff employee may be required to look up customer information and manually call any one of several telephone numbers, e.g., a home number, work number, cell phone number or pager number to contact the customer. This task may require several minutes to carry out. In the meantime, a vehicle may be stolen or a home may be vandalized. In an emergency situation, such a delay is not tolerable. Moreover, a staffed operations center creates a significant cost factor, in part because office employees are needed around the clock. This situation does not exhibit a positive economy of scale when required to service an increasingly larger customer base.
All these factors combine to show that employee staffed notification services cannot provide a low cost and effective monitoring, notification and control system for a large number of users. What is needed is a low-cost, fully automated notification and control system for providing information about user items such as vehicles, homes or office spaces. The automated system should allow a user to specify which events or conditions are to be monitored. Indications of the specified conditions should be automatically detected and notification sent to the user without using services performed by human operators. A variety of notification devices, such as telephone, facsimile, pager and email should be available to allow users flexibility when using the system. There should also be user access to the system that allows the user to control and update monitored events, alarm conditions, user notification devices, and contact information.
In addition, an automated system must be able to optimize the amount of information which can be transmitted within a short time and within the constraints of the applicable data protocol. Considering the example of a vehicle-based system, a user will want to know when a break-in has occurred and possibly other information regarding the break-in, such as whether the vehicle is being moved, the location and speed of the vehicle, etc. The in-vehicle apparatus may have a limited amount of time within which to transmit these data before the thief disables the apparatus. Moreover, the data packets transmitted by the in-vehicle apparatus will have a limited number of bytes or digits within which all of the notification information must be encoded.